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“Damaged” opens with Ollie trying out a bow and arrow for a first time back on Purgatory Island. Yao Fei and Ollie are hunting and Ollie is tired of having to pick up animal carcasses for the Asian Arrow. After missing his target badly, Ollie is sent to pick up his errant arrow but gets kidnapped by a group of mercenaries.

Flashing forward to the present, Ollie’s is getting processed by the Starling City police, who arrested him last episode. Although his mother and stepfather stop Detective Lance from interrogating him for too long, Ollie insists that he should be represented by Laurel. While Moira thinks it’s a bad idea, she passes along the request to Laurel. Ollie seems to think that Laurel can reach out to her father and stop him from pushing his vendetta against Ollie further. Laurel is reluctant to take on the case, but upon hearing that Ollie’s still “smitten” by her, she shows up at Ollie’s plea hearing and convinces the judge to put him under house arrest.

After the commercial break, Ollie gets fitted for a GPS and announces his intentions to throw a prison themed party to show that “he’s not worried”. Meanwhile, Laurel and her dad argue about Ollie’s innocence and whether Quentin is lashing out at Queen for ruining his marriage and killing his daughter.

Later, Ollie explains to Diggle that he meant to be arrested and that the video evidence was deliberately set up. Ollie’s plan, allegedly, is to convince the police of his innocence now in order to prevent them from getting suspicious later. Diggle thinks it’s a rather tenuous plan but agrees to help Ollie, namely by following the movements of an arms dealer named Leo Mueller.

Walter Steele calls in Queen Industries’ head of security and asks him to move the wreckage of the Queen’s Gambit to a more secure location. While Walter’s making plans behind her back, Moira discusses with John Barrowman (who’s still unnamed) and one of his thugs about whether her son is actually the vigilante responsible for attacking their criminal associates. Meanwhile, Ollie and Laurel meets with Detective Lance and Kate Spencer, the prosecuting attorney. While Ollie turns down a plea bargain from Spencer, he does offer to take a polygraph test in front of Detective Lance.

During another flashback, Ollie is brought in to meet the head of the mercenaries, a man named Edward Fyers. Fyers seems uninterested in Ollie’s offer of money and only seems to be interested in Yao Fei’s location. After Ollie lies about knowing Fei, Fyers calls in a masked mercenary (who fans know to be the villain Deathstroke) to torture the information out of him.

After being hooked up to the polygraph machine, Ollie admits that he hadn’t been alone on the island and tells Detective Lance (and Laurel) that he’d been tortured on the island, but that he had lied about it to keep his family safe. As he does so, a flashback reveals that as he’s being tortured, Fei rescues him after a brief fight with Deathstroke. Ollie also tells Lance that he’s responsible for Sarah’s death when asked if he’s ever murdered anyone. Despite Ollie’s performance, Lance isn’t convinced and tells Laurel he won’t drop the charges.

That night, Ollie’s party goes forward as planned. It’s your typical CW affair filled with a bunch of hotties and liberal alcohol consumption. Ollie asks Diggle to dress up as “the Hood” and stop Leo Meuller in order to convince the cops that he’s not the killer. Diggle’s not thrilled about being played, but agrees to help him out. After Diggle leaves, Laurel arrives and asks to see Ollie’s scars. The sight of Ollie shirtless makes her instant hot for him, leading the two to make out briefly before Laurel runs off.

While Ollie’s hooking up with his ex, Diggle successfully breaks up Mueller’s attempt to sell automatic rifles to gangbangers. After learning that his head of security has died in a mysterious car wreck, Walter confronts his wife about the boat wreckage. Moira seems to be surprised about their employee’s death, but insists that Walter mind his own business before he gets hurt.

Back at Queen Manor, Barrowman’s thug tries to kill Ollie. Although Ollie puts up a good fight, the thug manages to get his gun and is about to shoot him before he’s shot by Detective Lance. Lance had found out about the disappearance after the thug broke Ollie’s ankle bracelet. Quickest response time ever.

Lance drops the charges against Ollie, explaining that there was a Hood sighting. However, Laurel discovers that Ollie had blipped during a question about Iron Heights, leading her to suspect that he was controlling his reactions all along. Ollie convinces her that he’s far too damaged from his experience on the island to vigilante, although it brings about Laurel affirming that she can never get back together with Ollie. Ever. A final flashback reveals that Ollie was also abandoned by Fei, who trapped him in their cave after giving him a small pouch in order to draw the mercenaries away from him.

The episode ends with Walter leaving town for a while, obviously upset at his wife’s lies, despite her warning Barrowman to leave her family alone. Also, Laurel picks up her drunk father at the bar and Ollie tells Diggle that he cares that his lies hurts his family. Oh, and Ollie suits up and takes down Mueller once and for all.

So that’s this week’s episode. Lots happened. I’m tired, so we’ll talk more about it next week. Check out Arrow Annotations tomorrow.

Just a horrible look altogether. But then, I haven't started drinking the kool aid of this show yet. It's really bad. The writing is not very good, and everyone has to act like a retard for the story to work every week.. the acting is getting better with most of the cast.. except, you know, the main guy.. who is probably the the worst actor I can think of right now as a lead on a TV show. The guy is stiff as hell, and can't emote to save his life. His party boy persona is laughably bad.

Just a horrible look altogether. But then, I haven't started drinking the kool aid of this show yet. It's really bad. The writing is not very good, and everyone has to act like a retard for the story to work every week.. the acting is getting better with most of the cast.. except, you know, the main guy.. who is probably the the worst actor I can think of right now as a lead on a TV show. The guy is stiff as hell, and can't emote to save his life. His party boy persona is laughably bad.

And yet, all that said.. I'm still watching.

It's like a trainwreck you can't look away from.

Nah you're wrong, it's miles ahead of Smallville and the acting is definitely better.

"Miles ahead of Smallville" isn't incongruent with being lousy TV, there's a low benchmark if ever I've seen one. I've seen fan-made work much better than Green Arrow. I haven't made it all the way through an episode yet without getting bored and changing the channel on the tv or just wandering away from it.

Just a horrible look altogether. But then, I haven't started drinking the kool aid of this show yet. It's really bad. The writing is not very good, and everyone has to act like a retard for the story to work every week.. the acting is getting better with most of the cast.. except, you know, the main guy.. who is probably the the worst actor I can think of right now as a lead on a TV show. The guy is stiff as hell, and can't emote to save his life. His party boy persona is laughably bad.